I delayed my newsletter a few days because I didn’t know what I wanted to write about here in the intro section. I told myself that I did not want to write about trans issues, because it’s just been everywhere lately.
But there’s just too much. This week there’s a Florida state representative calling us “mutants, devils, and imps” which I would otherwise call pretty metal and wear as a badge of pride if it wasn’t coming from someone voting to strip rights from us in the name of him being a “Proud Conservative Christian”. Funny how his viewpoint means that he should legislate against us, as opposed to our viewpoint just wanting him to leave us alone.
Or how about the weird way that guys online are reacting to MrBeast’s friend for coming announcing that they are fine with any pronouns and and being on HRT? Try defending your comments by saying that you are just worried about the child of someone that you’ve never met having a messed up childhood for not having a “strong father figure”, but it’s just a dog whistle for intolerance. Or make a popular video where people comment on how you get to see “both sides of the issue” on someone living their own life but doing so on camera as they’ve done for a decade already. Even better when you say that people will be turned off because of “over-the-top LGBT characters added for the sake of relatability” that will be a distraction, which is a weird way to describe someone who has been involved in the channel all this time and is just existing as themselves.
What’s most frustrating and troubling to me are the fights happening between trans and queer folks, because of differing opinions on unrelated topics. I don’t know how to address issues relating to community, safety, and moderation when it gets reduced to “real trans community” versus “trans people hiding behind their marginalization to destroy communities”. I swear that everything isn’t so dire!
I get it. I get that the world is an onslaught of terrible news after terrible news, and that we can’t control things outside of ourselves. But I don’t think that looking at positives in the world and appreciating them means that you are ignorant of the negatives, or not committing yourself to bringing about more positive over time.
I’m not linking to any of the above because I don’t want to add anymore oxygen to it. I’m just venting in long, poorly constructed paragraphs because I don’t really know what to say about any of this. I’m trying to live my life well for myself and especially those around me, and I often feel like I’m falling short. And unfortunately that means that those closest to me take on the brunt of my negativity, which is exactly what I’m trying to avoid.
Anyway, I rambled in a stream of consciousness, and I’m gonna hit send without proofing so that it’ll sound as disjointed as my thoughts generally are 😅 I’m likely taking the next week off from this as my partner is visiting and I’ll return with something about all of the fun that we get into!
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If you made it this far, why not share this newsletter with a friend? Or share with me some of the things that you found that you liked this week. Either way, I’m thrilled!
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